Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Harnessing the
power of employee
communication
Contents
Introduction
Executive summary
Key themes
17
References
19
Introduction
senior managers.
Engagement, E.ON
Research, IHG
Virgin Active
E.ON
Westfield UK
Network Rail
IHG
Executive summary
a key lever.
Six key themes are covered in this report and are of value
forced rather than adopting a strategic approach proactively. It will be interesting to see if the public sector
will adopt a more informed approach to employee
1A
strategic approach is built on a shared
sense of purpose
Organisation
Context
BT Operate
c.17,500 total labour resource
located in over 30 countries across
the globe.
E.ON
18,000 employees in 80 plus sites
across the UK.
Network Rail
34,000 employees based in multiple
locations throughout the UK, many
of whom are working trackside.
Since 2002 Network Rail has owned and operated Britains rail
infrastructure. Fundamentally this means running, developing
and maintaining tracks, signalling systems, tunnels, bridges, level
crossing and viaducts as well as 18 stations.
Internal communication is seen as part of the overall
communications strategy of the business and is led by Mark
Shaoul, Head of Marketing.
Virgin Active
4,800 employees throughout the
UK.
Westfield
650 employees in the UK.
Locations include:
head office, seven operational
centres including the flagship
centre Westfield London. Currently
developing Stratford City due to
launch next year.
Key themes
of purpose
of communication.
same dynamic for the team that individual sits within and
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BT Operate
BT Operate was created in 2007 through the merger of three different business areas Wholesale,
Global Services and One IT to create a new company of 18,000 employees in over 30 countries
although with a dominance in the UK. Representing the engine room of BT the mindset of the
predominantly blue collar workforce was technology first and service second and this needed to
change. The strategy for the new organisation focused on efficiency and reliability, developing pride
in service and also cost reduction jobs would go. Yet for many, despite the merger they were to all
intents and purposes doing the same job what had in fact changed? There was a need to unite the
employees under a common purpose something that signalled a break from the past but something
that also engaged people for the journey ahead.
SIMPLY was the programme launched to do this. It had a number of strands of activity within it
including Simply the start workshops, which all employees were invited to attend. Information about
the business strategy was shared in advance with all employees so that the workshops were not used as
a classical information cascade but as a true engagement experience, where business leaders could be
seen as human and have an open discussion with employees about the strategy and just what it meant.
The 150 leaders assigned to run the events were given dedicated and extensive training to ensure they
could appreciate their audience, actively listen, surface concerns and respond effectively to questions.
The chief executive or a member of the board was at every one the chief executive personally led 11
workshops. In fact leadership development and senior-level relationship-building were additional wins
from the programme.
When it came to measuring success, immediate feedback from the workshops showed high levels of
understanding and engagement with the business goals, and the quarterly employee climate survey,
Care, consistently reported a 95% appreciation of the strategy.
for them
an aversion to communicating when they do not
them
Westfield
Westfields key channel for driving a shared sense of purpose and understanding across divisions has
been employee roadshows, where senior managers travel around the country to meet all employees
face-to-face and explain the vision and goals of the organisation. In the old days, the exercise would be
considered over at that point.
Alex Kershaw, HR Director at Westfield, explains how a lack of a shared sense of purpose and the feeling
of exclusion can lead to conflicting behaviour at middle manager and employee level. Nobody gets out
of bed in the morning to make anybodys life difficult. But if we dont explain to people where we are
heading and how they and their fellow peers and colleagues contribute to this, then they will only work
towards their own goals because that is all they know.
We have just completed a roadshow in each of our nine business locations over the last month but we
realise that the work doesnt stop there. The challenge now is to keep momentum and to keep the vision
and objectives clear in the minds of our employees by constantly repeating the message and making sure
we link everything we do back to it.
Virgin Active
Virgin Active launched a new customer service strategy this year, which had big implications for the
managers within the organisation. Historically, their managers had been concerned with costs, sales and
revenue. As such, their language tended to reflect those issues. A key part of bringing about a more
customer-centric culture was to ensure their communication style changed.
Dominic Boon, Head of People, explains: In the UK, Virgin Active had grown very quickly from 24 to 71
clubs through acquisitions. The focus had always been on being located in the most convenient area and
offering innovative fitness products. It was time for us to remind ourselves and the organisation that what
actually needed to be at the forefront of everybodys mind was the member experience. We embarked on a
big change project with the firm belief that it was our employees in the clubs who knew what our members
wanted, so we approached it bottom-up and got employees directly involved in formulating our new
service strategy and our five service behaviours.
One of the big challenges that we faced was a cultural gap between the clubs and the head office that had
developed over the years, and which was very much reflected in the way that the head office communicated
with the clubs. The main communication flow was based on information about sales figures and revenue.
So a key part of the change to a more customer-centric culture was to work closely with the senior
management team to try and change their behaviours and way of communicating.
When visiting the centres in the past, the senior managers first question would be around sales
performance. Now the first question is what are the members saying about their workout? Or can I meet
some of the staff who have recently been praised by our members? which the clubs really see as senior
managers displaying more customer-centric behaviour and showing genuine interest in what is happening
out in the clubs.
employee engagement.
individual.
instance.
As CIPD Adviser Mike Emmott argues in the paper
3 Engagement demands dialogue
business results.
employees heads.
management
performance.
cannot be achieved.
management.
the process.
treated fairly.
and to help them see the bigger picture and know how
they play a part. But all too often the cascading aspect
IHG
IHG has a dispersed leadership group. To support communication and help align behind our core purpose
Great hotels guests love we had to create an online community where we could share knowledge and
offer continuous, collaborative, action learning. The focus was on unlocking and sharing the existing
knowledge and experience of IHGs global leaders, making leadership development and communication part
of their day job, says Jane Maxwell, Director HR Communications and Research.
The IHG Leaders Lounge is hosted by facilitators who steer the content. It moves beyond the traditional model
of learning (workshops and events) to form a continuous, collaborative model of ongoing learning. Piloted in
one IHG region for nine months, it was then rolled out to become a global leadership development tool in
May 2009.
The benefits for this new way of leading are measured in different ways, with Change behaviour and
increased engagement being one of them. Lounge members have so far downloaded and shared 3,000
leadership tools with their leadership teams across the world. These tools range from The IHG framework
for leading big change to Excite, engage and motivate a guide to effective communication; which IHG
developed on the back of the findings in the MacLeod report.
channel.
communication mix.
to-face interaction.
if not later.
virtual generation.
engagement positively.
(Melcrum
2010),
whichof
surveyed
2,065
needed.
As Tom
Crawford
E.ON said:
It senior
might be
communicators
from
hundreds
of
organisations
exciting to say that the CEO is on Twitter but if he
worldwide,
or she
never sitsexplains:
and talks to people in the canteen,
Virgin Active
Dominic Boon from Virgin Active is a good example of a new generation of leaders who embrace technology
and see it as a natural way of keeping in touch with employees. Dominic is also using it to keep the
momentum of bringing head office and clubs closer together as part of the culture change programme.
Im always looking for positive things that I can tweet about when Im out and about visiting our clubs. It is a
good way to reach out to all our employees across the country, share news and recognise great performance.
My tweets also appear on my LinkedIn page so its a way to promote our clubs to my network as well. In the
past, we have posted employee recognition award ceremonies on YouTube which include the People Team
in fancy dress! I also send an email in the style of a blog to the full People Team every Friday, talking about
where I have been during the week, what the weeks news is and our latest customer satisfaction figures. I
end it with a personal touch, such as what I might be up to at the weekend. While Dominic was a little bit
worried about how his team would respond to his Friday emails, there has only been good feedback.
Network Rail
Iain Coucher, CEO of Network Rail, has a blog as part of an array of channels designed to offer all employees
the chance to pose questions and feedback to him. He has taken a deliberate stance to hear what his
employees want to say. Other channels include a roadshow of business briefings and regular town halls where
the leadership team answer anonymous questions picked out by an independent moderator. Network Rail
have even trialled live debate online to ensure there is two-way communication in the business and a sense of
access to senior leaders. The task is still not easy. As one colleague describes: Its tough for Iain. We are in a
changing industry and some of what is coming with this change is not always welcomed by employees that
makes Iain the man of the people but with bad news.
and the CIPD, Gen Up: How the four generations work,
Wright 2009).
result
impact assessment should include behavioural
Westfield
For Westfield, the diversity in their audience is defined by professions and they put effort into customising
the messages and the actual delivery, although still using the same channel. We customise our Roadshow
to cater for the different audiences, which range from typical corporate functions such as IT, HR, finance and
marketing, to design and construction professionals on site and service staff in our centres. We try to apply a
20/80 rule to the content: 80% is the same whilst 20% is customised according to the audience. We involve
the relevant senior managers for each audience, so that each part of the business gets to hear from their
own leader as well as the COO. We also customise the content, expanding and contracting elements of the
presentation to ensure maximum relevance for the audience, says Alex Kershaw, HR Director at Westfield.
any organisation.
embedding this.
Network Rail
When Network Rail measured the effectiveness of their 365 Safety programme they wanted to
understand what aspects had been more effective than others. The overall results for safety were
improving with dropping numbers of reportable accidents. But even though this was a result, they
needed to evaluate the whole communication approach that had been taken. So they were very specific
in asking employees what in particular had had the most impact in changing their views towards safety
in the workplace and as a result their behaviours. Through this analysis they were able to see that certain
activities they had undertaken like going out on the road and certain materials they had produced in
particular some hard-hitting safety videos had had the greatest impact.
IHG
IHG has been widely recognised for the thorough and highly successful change programme they
embarked on in 2006. The aim was to create a deliberate and planned process to align their people
behind a core purpose: Great hotels guests love. This journey required them to be clear on enabling a
work environment that allowed people to be recognised and treated as an individual. It then gave a clear
steer on the values they live by winning ways. These everyday behaviours define who IHG is and what
they value. Great companies know where they are going, but really great companies take their people
on the journey with them which meant IHG had to find a way to help each employee understand
how they contribute to the core purpose. A balanced scorecard was introduced and ways of working
created which are practical and helpful methods that help the company become more efficient and
aligned. The final step in the journey was measurement and ensuring that IHG achieved the right results.
Their measurements show that they are certainly doing something right. Engagement has improved 17%
and the company tracks well above the service industry benchmark. When employees are asked if they
are inspired to do their best to create Great hotels guests love, 89% of their employees agreed (up 2%
from 2007). And when employees are asked if they understood how their job contributed to Great hotels
guests love, then 94% of employees agreed (up again 2% from 2007).
With inspiring leadership, the HR team have been in the middle of creating and supporting the company
to change. My role was created within HR to help ensure we are measuring the right things and helping
managers do something about the results. The communication element was added to help everybody in
HR to keep pace with the changes and as our internal communication team which sits under corporate
communication expands, we will work closely together to continue to develop and support our leaders,
says Jane Maxwell, Director HR Communications and Research, IHG.
helping them:
shared purpose
media.
employee lifecycle
Clear internal
comms objectives
and responsibility
Communication
planning
Build leadership
ownership and capability
Having
a clear
purpose
Measurement of impact
and outcomes
Focus on
creating dialogues
References
Consulting Group.
CHURCHARD, C. (2009) Staff engagement rises at Marks
CHARTERED INSTITUTE OF PERSONNEL AND
co.uk/pm/articles/2009/09/staff-engagement-rises-at-
cipd.co.uk/subjects/empreltns/general/_employee_outlook
marks-and-spencer-despite-job-losses.htm [Accessed 10
August 2010].
organisation_performance_full_report.htm [Accessed 10
August 2010].
gen-hr/_time_change_next_generation.htm [Accessed
10 August 2010].
London: Melcrum.
co.uk/subjects/empreltns/comconslt/_voice_engagement_
collective_consultation.htm [Accessed 10 August 2010].
subjects/empreltns/general/_HR_directors_guide_
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